


On the 7th Day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: Seven Dollar Cocoa

by Mangokiwitropicalswirl



Series: The Twelve Tropes of Christmas [7]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 07:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9167806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangokiwitropicalswirl/pseuds/Mangokiwitropicalswirl





	

The Gallery cafe is full of bundled skaters drinking their fill of cocoa before heading back out to the sculpture garden’s wintertime ice rink. Mulder and Scully feel a bit out of place in their formal wear, but they’re much too cold to care. Scully is shivering almost uncontrollably now, and inside her heels, she can no longer wiggle her toes. Why had she let Mulder talk her into walking anywhere other than into the taxi queue?

But he unwinds the scarf from his neck and rewraps it around hers before settling them at a little table as far from the doorway as possible before returning with two of the largest cups of cocoa Scully has ever seen.

“Seven dollars for cocoa,” Mulder grumbles, “can you believe it?”

“It better be worth it,” Scully laughs. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Oh no, it’s the least I can do,” says Mulder smiling as he eases into the chair next to her. “It’s worth it already.”

“How did you know about this cafe?” Scully cups her stiff hands around the ceramic mug that seems more like a bowl than something you’d actually lift to your mouth.

“I’ve met contacts at the museum a few times,” explains Mulder. “A little less obvious than a parking garage, don’t you think?”

“Well, yes,” Scully nods. “I just didn’t figure you for an art aficionado?”

“Scully, you wound me!” Mulder presses his hand to his chest with mock offense. “I could be an art guy, you don’t know.”

“After six years, Mulder,” Scully blows little ripples across the surface of the giant cocoa, “I would have guessed that planetariums would be more your speed.”

“There are still a few things about me you don’t know, Scully.” Mulder’s tone softens and he reaches to smooth a thumb over the back of her hand. 

Scully startles at his touch, “Mulder! Your hands are absolutely freezing! We need to have you checked out for frostbite!”

“I’ll be fine,” he brushes off her concerns. “We just probably need to stay inside for awhile until we’re both warmed up. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Mulder stands and takes her cocoa and his back to the counter as Scully watches him with a confused look. She sees him gesture to the clerk for two to-go cups with lids and sees him pour their drinks sloppily in. He comes back to the table and holds out an elbow for her to rise.

“I thought we just agreed we need to stay inside?” she questions.

“We do, but I thought we could go somewhere a little more aesthetically pleasing. Are your toes warmed up?”

Scully nods and follows beside him as he pushes through the cafe’s interior door and into a museum hallway. At the end of a dimly lit corridor, a sleepy guard sits at a podium, his cap tilted forward over his face. 

“Hold the drinks for a sec, okay Scully?”

Mulder reaches into his inside pocket for his badge and strides quickly up to the guard. Scully hears a few familiar phrases issuing confidently from his mouth, phrases like “official FBI business” and “that’s classified” and “do you need time to confirm with your supervisor?” At least this time there won’t be dead bodies, or hiding in freezers, or hasty autopsies to do, she smiles.

After a few minutes, he’s apparently convinced the guard that the two of them need access to the galleries on official FBI business, and also managed to get him to both turn off the security system and turn on a few lights. Mulder seems to have an idea of where he’s going.

“You weren’t kidding about meeting contacts here were you?” She raises an eyebrow at him.

“I wasn’t,” he shrugs as he takes back his drink and then takes her free hand with his other. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to blend in here, and plus, no one thinks anything’s weird if you’re talking in whispers.”

“So we’re at the National Gallery.” She looks around at the wide room they’ve stepped into. “Did you have any favorites?”

“I do. We’ll get there. But how about you, Scully? Any favorite styles?”

“Let’s just see what’s here,” she wanders toward the next room, the sound of her heels echoing in the open empty space. For a few minutes, they’re quiet, moving slowly from painting to painting as the cocoa slowly warms them from inside. 

“Oh my goodness!” Scully exclaims as they pass through one corridor full of Impressionist pieces. She almost runs toward one, a smatter of green lilypads and pink blossoms, with a blue arch over water.

“You know this one, I take it?” asks Mulder.

“I had a poster of this in my dorm room freshman year of college,” she blushes slightly. “It’s Monet. The Japanese Footbridge.”

“Doesn’t every girl have an Impressionist phase?” he teases.

“Not every girl,” Scully admits. “My roommate’s side of the room was all posters of Depeche Mode and Pink Floyd!”

“Your roommate had good taste in music, Scully. I hope you took notes.” 

“I did!” She laughs. “Although I can’t say we’ve kept in touch. I was a bit too much of a bookworm for her liking.”

“But look where it got you, Dr. Scully,” says Mulder, looking down at her with only a hint of irony.

They fall into silence again as they wander past paintings and sculptures, through a central hallway full of poinsettias surrounding a fountain. Their soft footsteps and occasional comments the only sounds in the vast domed room. Minutes later Scully again catches a glimpse of a familiar image on a far wall and she drops Mulder’s hand as she rushes toward it.

“I don’t believe it!” She exclaims, “My mom had a little print of this in our kitchen in San Diego! It was one of my dad’s favorites.”

Mulder stares at her a minute. “Are you serious, Scully?”

“I am,” she nods. “Dad loved nautical themed art -- clipper ships, lighthouses, you name it. And this one. He said it reminded him of when he first learned to sail as a boy.”

“We had the very same painting,” Mulder laughs.

“You’re kidding!”

“It’s by a Massachusetts artist. Mom had a reproduction hanging over the couch in the summer house.”

For a few minutes they both stare at the painting of three young boys navigating rough Atlantic waters in a small sailboat. Scully grows perceptibly quieter as the moments pass.

“I'm sorry I never got to meet your dad,” Mulder says quietly.

“Me too,” she whispers as she takes his hand again, squeezing it gently. “Me too.”


End file.
